


All That Matters

by KaytiKazoo



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Human, Asshole Matt Daehler, Disappointing Date, F/F, Minor Cora Hale/Stiles Stilinski, Skinny Dipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-03
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-04 23:13:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4156578
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KaytiKazoo/pseuds/KaytiKazoo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kira goes on a disappointing date with Matt from class, and finds herself on an adventure with a barefooted stranger named Malia.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All That Matters

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fatetouched](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatetouched/gifts).



_“We’re almost there and nowhere near  it . All that matters is that we’re going.” –Gilmore Girls _

To say that Kira was disappointed was an understatement. 

The date had started off well enough; he had brought her flowers and complimented her, got along great with her roommate, and even opened the car door for her. The dance was hosted off campus at this fancy ballroom in the bottom floor of the local Holiday Inn, so driving was required if you didn’t want to wait in line for the shuttle. He had asked her in her Historiography class, and while she had been planning to just go stag, she couldn’t think of a reason to say no. It was a costume party, of course, since Halloween was coming  up and why the hell not?

Kira had decided to dress up like a fox, dressed in an orange dress, a fox ear headband nestled in her hair and the tail pinned to the back of her dress, her feet in orange velvet flats and she looked cute. The guy, Matt, she had decided to go out with had dressed in a t-shirt that looked like Batman’s armor and had on black pants. Kira looked cute, and Matt looked like a douche, but Kira was willing to look past that.

“So, Kira,” Matt started to say, before handing over their tickets to the girl dressed as the Tenth Doctor at the table by the doors. She handed them two wristbands.

“They glow in the dark!” she informed them excitedly before ushering them forwards. 

That’s when Matt got weird.

He kept putting his hands in places Kira wasn’t okay with, and he wouldn’t let her talk to anyone, not even Cora. Cora was one of Kira’s best friends at school, and he tugged her away as soon as Kira got close. She couldn’t even look at Cora’s boyfriend, Stiles without Matt turning her away. She was not having a good night. She was tired, her feet hurt, she was groped in places she did not want to be groped in, and her night just overall sucked. 

She wanted to go back to her dorm, eat some Ramen, and pretend the outside world didn’t exist until Lydia stumbled in, half blissed out from an amazing night with her boyfriend and girlfriend and then snuggled in bed with Kira to watch Teen Titans and Powerpuff Girls. That is all she wanted. She didn’t want to be pressed up into Matt who kept looking at her like he wanted to devour her, and she didn’t want to be in the sweaty ballroom surrounded by sweaty college students who were trying to get off on the dance floor.

“I’m going to get some air,” Kira yelled into Matt’s ear, pushing him backwards enough for his grip on her waist to break. She stumbled back and turned, sliding her way between writhing couples to get to the doors. Cora and Stiles, dopey with love, were leaned against the door outside, not kissing but still being stupidly in love. “Mind if I get through?”

Cora looked up from Stiles and grinned. 

“Kira! How’s it going? How’s what’s-his-face?”

“Handsy ,” Kira said with a frown.

“I’ll beat him up for you,” Stiles offered.

“Oh, sweetie, you might hurt yourself,” Cora mocked him. “Better yet, I’ll beat him up, and it’ll be much more effective.”

“Thanks, I think I'm just gonna go, though. I want to just lie in bed and pretend tonight never happened.”

“Do you want us to walk with you?” Stiles asked.

“That’s sweet of you, but I think I can handle the walk back to campus.”

“Okay, well, you call us if you change your mind,” Cora urged. Kira agreed and started her trek back to campus. She grew angrier as she walked. She didn't want to be that girl, but she hated boys sometimes. She'd had a good date with Scott McCall, a friend of Stiles’, a few months back  but there hadn't been much there and she could tell he was still getting over his high school sweetheart (which she came to find out was Lydia’s new girlfriend), and there was a brief flirtation with a boy in her Oral History, but nothing came of that. She was eternally single, she was pretty sure, and she would blame boys like Matt for existing. 

Kira stumbled into the volleyball court, her flats sinking into the sand, and she sank with them, falling onto her knees. She curled into herself and tried, really tried to not let the tears get away. She would not cry. She would not cry over Matt and his stupid façade that he wasn't even smart enough to keep up for the entire date. 

Hot tears streamed down her face and she hated it.

“Fuck Matt Daehler!” she growled at the sky.

“Yeah, fuck him,” another voice answered. Kira turned to find a girl wearing shorts and a cardigan standing on the court’s wooden border. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Kira replied.

“I’m Malia .”

Malia was gorgeous, with long tan legs and her light, sun-streaked brown hair twisted up into a clip. She had an intense stare, but it didn’t make Kira feel uncomfortable like some stares did.

“Kira.”

“I know, you're Cora’s friend.”

“You know Cora?”

“I’m her cousin, sort of. It’s complicated. Anyway, from what I hear from Cora is that you are normally super bubbly.”

“I wouldn't say super bubbly,” Kira said, but she knew she was lying. She was super bubbly.

“You can out talk Stiles, I’ve heard,” Malia  said, her feet bare as she crossed the sand to sit beside Kira. “Now, what’s a pretty girl like you doing crying in the sand on a Friday night?”

“My date was a dick,” Kira replied, wiping at her cheeks. “And I don't like calling people names because that’s rude, and my mother raised me better than that. But this guy, God, he was such a dick. He acted all nice when he asked me out and then when he picked me up, but then a switch flipped or something, and he wouldn't  let me talk to my friends, and he kept touching me even after I asked him not to, and it was horrible.”

Malia frowned, and watched Kira for a moment.

“You want to go on an adventure with me?” 

Kira nodded before the offer even processed. 

“Good, come on,”  Malia said, hopping up and grabbing her hand. She dragged Kira standing and grinned at her, reaching up to flick at Kira’s fox ears. “You're really cute, by the way.”

“Thanks,” Kira said.  “You, too. I mean, you're cute as well. I mean, where are we going?”

“Does it matter? Adventures, getting lost, it’s all a part of the fun,”  Malia answered. “I love escaping, and just going. My dad gets so mad. I wandered away so much as a kid, used to disappear into the woods behind our house and just be gone for hours.”

Kira let Malia lead her by hand off the volleyball court.

“Aren't you cold?” Kira asked.

“Aren't you cold?” Malia countered, nodding towards her strapless dress.

“A bit, but-”

Malia was already shrugged off her cardigan, revealing a form fitting tank top underneath, and held it out to Kira.

“I can’t,” Kira said. Malia made a face and circled around behind Kira, holding it out for her. 

“I’m fine. Hot blooded runs in my family,”  Malia  explained, helping Kira slide her arms into the sleeves. 

“Hot blooded as in you're always warm, or hot blooded as in you're easily angered?”

“To be honest, a little bit of both.”

“Should I be scared?” Kira asked, buttoning the cardigan while following behind Malia. She walked with easy confidence, like she was 100% sure of where she was and who she was and where she was going. It was amazing, Kira thought. Even the most put-together people in Kira’s life were not as self-assured as Malia .

“No, I won't hurt you,” Malia said, dropping back to walk beside Kira. 

“Are you a Hale? I mean, you said you’re Cora’s cousin but it’s complicated, and I've never heard Cora say your last name before.”

“Okay, so,” Malia said, heading up the hill that lead towards the wooded mountain area of the town. “My dad is Cora’s uncle, but he didn't know I even existed because my biological mother and him were just a one-night stand kind of thing, and she put me up for adoption. I was adopted by the Tates, soMalia  Tate.”

"Malia Tate," Kira echoed. She followed Malia up the hill, mouthing the name and rolling it over and over in her mind, and decided that she liked how it felt in her mouth, that she wouldn't mind saying it all the time. 

"So, you know about me and my, well, let's just call it family drama. Tell me about you, Kira."

Kira shrugged as Malia looked at her with those big, soulful brown eyes. 

"Come on, give me the dirt on Kira. Start with your last name."

"Yukimura."

"What? What was that?"

Kira laughed and repeated, "Yukimura. Kira Yukimura."

Malia echoed her the same way Kira had echoed Malia's name, as if tasting it slowly. She smiled and fell into step with Kira, their hands brushing as they hiked the hill and into the forest. Kira hadn't really been an explorer in any part of her life, not even when she was a kid and everyone her age, kids like Malia,  was wandering off into the woods or into dark spaces. She liked practicing the movements her mother taught her with her sword, although back then she was only allowed a wooden dummy. She was taunted terribly for it by school bullies and she didn't care what they said; it was a part of her heritage. 

Of course, when the bullies started to go after her best friend in middle school, a girl that she's since lost contact with, and made her cry, Kira had to step in. With little shaking hands, she remembered whacking Brent McCormac right upside the head with her wooden dummy sword.

She'd been in so much trouble, but the bullies had left her and her friend alone for good.

"What do you want to know?" Kira asked as they drew further and further away from the light of the street lamps with every stride. She wasn't a fan of the dark.

Whenever she was scared, she remembered the look on Brent's face for the rest of the year after she had stood up to him, and her friend's chin tilted up proudly as they both walked past him and his hoard of now-useless minions. 

"Everything. Tell me everything. Anything. Tell me about your first pet."

Kira glanced at Malia, who looked right at home in the forest. Kira was dressed as a woodland creature but it was Malia who pulled off woodland creature without trying. It was amazing, and Kira couldn't stop the smile from creeping unbidden onto her lips.

"I had one pet, a goldfish. I named it Ronald, after Ron Weasley. Unfortunately, he got eaten by my aunt's cat, Mr. Ruffles, and then I was traumatized so I didn't get another pet. Mom offered to get me a puppy or a kitten, but I was too scared that some big predator would come along and eat them too, so Ronald was it for me. I can take care of plants pretty well. I have a cactus in my dorm. I call him Kal-El, because he's super."

Malia's eyebrows furrowed at that.

"I don't get it."

"Kal-El is Clark Kent's birth name, from when he was on Krypton."

That didn't seem to clear anything up.

"You know what, it doesn't matter. It's a comic book thing."

"Stiles says that a lot."

Kira laughed and tilted her head back to look at the canopy of dense leaves. Malia stopped and looked up with her. 

"The forest is so amazing, isn't it? I feel so at home here, like I belong here. I grew up with this big backyard that just opened into the trees, and I used to play there every night. The second I set foot beyond the tree line, I just felt at peace.  I was such an angry kid, always looking for something to fight, but the trees and the forest animals made me feel like I wasn't in the wrong skin or something."

Kira liked listening to Malia talk. She liked listening to most people talk about what they were passionate about. With Lydia, it was math and science. With Cora, it was her family. With Stiles, well, that was a bit of a grab bag given his wandering attention and binge research. With Malia, though, there was just something wild about her passions that thrilled Kira. 

"What about you?" Malia asked. "What makes you feel at home?"

Kira paused and thought about it slowly. She had moved from New York to California in high school, and it had been years since she'd been back. But the minute Malia asked, Kira knew. It was why she went to a big school in a big city.

"The sound of cars on a busy street," she replied. "I grew up in New York, in the city, and I have all of these great memories. I learned how to walk on a Brooklyn sidewalk, and I skipped school for the first time to go shopping in Manhattan with my friends. I lived in all five boroughs, and I liked to just wander through the streets just looking for some new shop I'd never seen before. No matter where I was, I could always hear cars on the road, and I always knew exactly how to get home."

Malia smiled at her, even though their homes were literal opposites of each other.

"What?"

"I've never liked the city, but the way you talk about it, I want to see it with you."

Kira couldn't stop herself from blushing and grinning. She barely knew this girl, and while she was sure she liked girls  in a romantic, I want to kiss and cuddle you way , that was merely a theory. She hadn't tested it out yet.  She wanted to kiss this girl, Cora's cousin with the long tan legs and the fearless smile.

That would be an adventure for another day, she supposed. 

She hoped she would have another day with Malia, because she liked being around her. She liked listening to Malia talk and seeing her smile. She hadn't even felt this way about any person she had tried to date, including Scott, but here she was with basically a stranger and she wanted to always be around her.

"Come on. There's something I want to show you," Malia said and grabbed Kira's hand. She followed behind as Malia led them deeper and deeper into the forest, away from the safety and civilization of the road. Malia walked with such confidence, like she knew that every step she took would land exactly where she wanted it to. There was nothing out here that could take Malia by surprise, even as the little hairs at the back of Kira's neck prickled with fear. 

The warmth and weight of Malia's hand holding hers staved off the thoughts about slasher films and men in the woods, but she feared that the moment they separated, she would have to actively try and keep those thoughts to herself. She didn't need this stranger learning that she was terrified. 

She was kind of terrified,  though.

One of the first times that she had hung out with Stiles and Scott had been on a traipse through the woods and it had ended with the three of them running for their lives as an angry redneck shot at them.

"We're not going to end up on some old man's property, right?" Kira asked, her voice barely above a whisper. Malia looked at her and her eyebrows pulled together in confusion. 

"Why are you whispering?" s he asked, her voice also just a whisper.

"Because there might be a man with a gun out there," Kira replied, her nerves getting the best of her. 

Malia smiled.

"There's no man with a gun, and even if there was, I won't let anything happen to you."

Kira looked from the dense trees around them to Malia's hand in hers to Malia's open expression.

"We're almost there, and then we can go right back. We'll be out before any grumpy old man ever finds out we're here. I promise. "

"Okay."

The woods were quiet as they continued their journey, the only sounds the light breeze blowing through the leaves and their combined steps rustling fallen leaves and breaking twigs.  Kira could feel her heart beating hard in her chest as they walked, twisting between the trees and straying from the vague path of trodden on earth. Every time she stumbled over a root, or turned around to check there wasn't a creature of the night following them, Malia would squeeze her hand as if to comfort her. 

It worked.

Finally,  Malia led them into a clearing that gave way  to a small lake where a small waterfall tumbled. Malia looked at Kira with a grin.

"Is it really an adventure if you know where you're going?" Kira asked, instead of asking why they were here in the first place. "Isn't it more of a journey?"

"Are you majoring in semantics?" Malia joked as she dropped Kira's hand and reached instead for the bottom of her tank top. In one swift motion, she pulled her shirt up and over her head, and tossed it away onto a soft patch of grass. 

"Well, I mean, n-no. I don't think t-that's an actual m-major, but," Kira stuttered.

"Kira," Malia said, halting Kira's uncontrollable mouth. She was undoing the button on her jean shorts.  "Do you want to debate word choice or do you want to take off your clothes and get in the water with me?"

Kira watched as Malia's shorts dropped to the ground, leaving her in just a pair of black underwear and a matching black and red bra. Her skin was smooth and unblemished,  tanned everywhere which gave Kira the impression that Malia liked to be nude as much as she could. Kira would bet she had no tan lines. She left Kira standing at the edge of the grass and headed to the water, dropping her bra first to the ground and then her underwear . Kira was right, her eyes roaming down Malia's completely bare and tan-line free body as Malia  entered what Kira assumed had to be freezing cold water. It didn't seem to faze her, if it was. Kira fumbled with the cardigan and let it fall. She kicked off her shoes as Malia turned, shoulder deep in the murky water, grinning at Kira.

Kira tugged the side zipper to her dress all the way down and let it puddle at her feet. She tossed her fox ear headband away, and then unhooked her strapless bra. This was her first time being naked with someone else, and she was shaking with something. Fear, maybe. Excitement, or nerves, also likely. Even a combination of the three. She edged toward the water and covered her breasts with her hands until she was in the water.

"It's not as fun when only one of us is naked," Malia teased. 

Kira maneuvered easily in the water, sliding off her underwear and tossing the pair to shore. She swam towards Malia with a smile.

"Is that better?"

Malia gave her a predatory grin and replied, "Much."

Malia swam easily on her back, floating up unabashedly toward the sky and back into the lake. Kira kicked at the gravelly silt at the bottom of the lake, her toes digging in until they could go no lower.

"Are you going to come in further ? You're still in the kiddy pool."

"I can't really swim," Kira replied. "I'm more of a land animal, you know. I'm just not good in the water. "

Malia righted herself and then gracefully swam back to Kira and held out her hands.

"Come on. I'll hold your hands the  whole way. I promise."

She stepped back and tugged Kira slowly into the deeper end of the lake, small steps until they weren 't able to touch their feet to the ground. They bobbed and bounced, and Kira felt silly but her entire body was warm despite the chilled water. 

"Did you ever have swimming lessons?"  Malia asked. 

"Once. My mom took me into the water at this swimming lesson and I started crying immediately. I didn't want to be there, and I was scared of the water. I squirmed in Mom's arms  and she dropped me into the water, and I sank to the bottom. I was so scared that when she got me out of the water, I didn't stop crying for hours. It took my dad and a cup of hot chocolate to calm me down. I think I was about 5 or 6. The most I did since was dip my feet in the pool or  wade in to my waist."

"Well, I won't drop you. I've got you."

Malia was gentle, her touch and grip just tight enough to ensure that Kira wouldn't slip but careful enough not to hurt her. She wandered them backwards and then pulled Kira close, their stomach and then their breasts sliding together in a warm, slippery wonder. 

"What are you-"

"I want to kiss you, if you want me to. Stiles said I should always ask permission  before, you know, making passes."

"I want you to kiss me, I've just-"

"Never been kissed?" Malia guessed, her trademark Hale eyebrows furrowing as if she found that hard to believe. 

"Never kissed a girl, before. I like girls, but no girls have really liked me, so-" Kira trailed off as Malia leaned in close.

"Is this okay?"

Kira nodded, and then Malia's lips were on hers, slotting them together like two linking puzzle pieces. Malia propelled them towards shore until their feet touched the silt floor again. Kira, feeling safe with her feet touching Earth, could bring herself to kiss and touch in return. She slid her hands up Malia's arms to cup her face, holding Malia as she licked cautiously into her mouth. Malia groaned and licked back eagerly. 

Kira, once she started, couldn't stop touching. Her hands roamed like they hand minds of their own, sliding into Malia's hair and then down her back. She gripped her hips, and then ran her hand experimentally up her belly to rest just below one of Malia's breasts. She didn't want to push this too far, especially given Malia's admission to being a little warm blooded earlier in their night. 

If they could do this more often, she would definitely be okay with that.

She broke the kiss, earning a disappointed whine from Malia. 

"Is everything okay?" Malia asked.

"Yeah, everything is great. I just, do you want to go on a date with me?"

Malia grinned and then bumped her nose playfully against Kira's. 

"I was hoping you would get the hint."

Kira kissed Malia, keeping her hands just to Malia's hips and giving Malia only short, sweet kisses. 

"This was a much better night than I ever planned on," Kira admitted.  Malia laughed, and Kira decided she could learn to love adventures in the woods, and swimming in past the shallow end if only she could just hear that laugh again. 


End file.
